Shivers
by mindmelda
Summary: A small house, a large bed, dreams, and shivers.


Title: Shivers  
  
Author: Gina Lin Genre: Romance, Angst, SAP Pairing: 3+4+5 Warnings: Shounen-ai, Limey, Quatre POV Rating: PG-13 Archived: S_E Updates, SDQB  
  
Synopsis: Sometime after "Tea with Quatre". A small house, a large bed, dreams, shivers, warmth.  
  
Shivers  
  
Even before I'm fully awake, my limbs are trembling. Of course it's a nightmare, after all, I have so many to choose from. The dream fades before I can even attempt to remember. Not that really I want to.  
  
It's the shivers that let me know I'm deliberately choosing on some level to forget. I've learned in the past few months what the brain cannot take in consciously becomes the stuff of dreams. The sorts of dreams that make you shiver.  
  
If it were illness, some pill, or injection would probably do the trick. If I were cold, I'd pull an extra blanket around me. I only wish these shivers were so easily cured, a thing originating in the body, not the mind.  
  
Like all creatures, I flinch from discomfort, regardless of whether some nagging part of my soul insists I deserve it. The shivers are perhaps my penance for neglecting my conscience. My father's ideals. Once mine until reality forced them into painful and reluctant surrender.  
  
I shiver again. It's not quite morning, no longer fully night. They say more people die before dawn than any other time. The body is at it's most helpless, it's lowest ebb of life. Perhaps the shivers come for that very reason. I'm closer to death than at any other time, but still not consumed by it. Not like those who have died at my hands.  
  
I hug myself, an instinctive reaction to the perception of coldness, of the shivers.  
  
Pulling myself into a tighter ball eases the sensation slightly. But, not entirely. This is the instinctive position of comfort first remembered from the womb. Of complete acceptance and warmth.  
  
"Quatre?" a familiar lush tenor carries across from the doorway to my ears.  
  
I attempt to unclench. My fetal posture is a dead give away of distress. But I am weak. There is nothing I wish more than the warmth of human contact. It is the cure for the shivers.  
  
Shenlong's pilot hates weakness. I can recite his rants from heart.  
  
The bedsprings creak and I feel a settling of the mattress under me on one side. It's a queen bed, the only one in this small, one-bedroom house. Wufei staked out the comfy overstuffed sofa in the small living room the first day, tactful, as always, giving Trowa and I the bedroom with it's large and only bed.  
  
"I'm all right," I mutter. Comforting me would embarrass both of us. Him for seeing my weakness, me for him witnessing it.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I wish I were him for your sake."  
  
I'm surprised, speechless for a long moment.  
  
"It's all right," I say. "You're you, and it's enough."  
  
I know he will never make the first move, so I do.  
  
I reach down and hold open the blankets, an open invitation.  
  
He hesitates, then slips under them next to me.  
  
His back is stiff, but warm.  
  
"We don't have to do anything but hug," I say, feeling strangely childish.  
  
Silence.  
  
I wait.  
  
"Okay," he finally says, flipping over to face me in the gray dawn light.  
  
We squirm around awkwardly trying to find a way to fit together that is comfortable.  
  
"You're not used to this," I say against his shoulder. He doesn't quite remember how to mold his body against another person's.  
  
"No one has hugged me for a very long time," he says in a higher than normal voice. I suddenly realize the feeling of childish vulnerability has come partly from him, even without his voice giving it away.  
  
"Relax," I say softly. "I'm not going to try anything funny."  
  
"I trust you," he says. "Besides, I know you and Trowa.."  
  
I put a finger against his lips. "Nothing we're doing would make him angry with either of us."  
  
I can feel and hear him swallow hard. He shivers.  
  
I reach up make small comforting circles on his shoulder and the shivering abates. He lets his hand slide from the subtle indentation of my waist up to my shoulder blade and back. Slowly up and down.  
  
I feel his body begin to relax, to slowly relax against mine. He sighs. A small shudder of tension release travels up his form.  
  
The windows are shuttered tight in this small house we three have been using for the past fortnight, but small shafts of light sneak around the spaces in between.  
  
In the new light, I see his face slack and peaceful. I lightly trail my fingers against the gentled contours I see exposed by his drowsing state.  
  
He flinches a little and bats vaguely at my hand, and I have to suppress the urge to giggle. In seconds, his breathing is even, and I lean over and place the lightest of kisses on his forehead. He sighs in his sleep and a faint smile comes over his features.  
  
Outside, I hear the muted rumble of a familiar engine, and as usual, I'm aware of who it is. I'd know the feel of him anywhere.  
  
I hear the door unlock, and footsteps down the short hallway. The door opening with a slight squeak.  
  
I rise up on one elbow, my expression carefully neutral. Wufei hasn't stirred.  
  
Our eyes meet and I sense nothing but calm acceptance from him. Perhaps a twinge of amusement.  
  
"Move over," is all he says to me. I push myself closer to Wufei, who grunts and shifts over without relinquishing his head's place against my shoulder, his arm from around my torso.  
  
After hastily shedding his shoes and outer clothing, Trowa slides into the largish bed next to me. He wraps one arm around my waist, and I feel warm breath, then an open-mouthed kiss on the back of my neck. He spoons around me with that comfortable familiarity of lovers.  
  
"Glad it's a big bed," he says, yawning. That's my Tro, the master of saying much in few words. A shiver runs through him as he yawns, a physical release of tension, a swallowing of oxygen for his depleted system.  
  
I fall asleep in a dual embrace of warmth and love. And dream about a field of flowers I've never seen before.  
  
The End 


End file.
